Winston Stableford

1950: Born in Johannesburg, South Africa to Memory Cynthia Stableford and Captain Jack Stableford, formerly of the British Mechant Marine.

1955: Came to Canada with parents and younger brother Cameron. Lived in Hamilton, Stratford and Ancaster, Ontario. Attended Memorial Elementary School with the likes of Sarah James, Laura Mink, Larry Lovett, Foster Brown, Ron Tyrell, Barry Weymouth, Roy Thornton - some will remember me, some won't - but the class photos live on - Classmates

The High School Years: Band & Choir, 4 musicals (The Mikado, Finian's Rainbow, The Music Man, On a Clear Day You Can See Forever) under Bill Santor at Ancaster High and Vocational School. Played clarinet for 5 years. Among the glitterati were Nora Livingstone (music teacher, by now surely retired), David Walker (now a doctor), his sister Mary Jane (now Kraehling) 1 2 - a teacher and vice-principal, Chris Rumball 1 2 3 4 - jock and doc - head of the popular crowd and a complete unknown to me, Karen Brown, Susan Stone - the best piano player I've ever seen, Wendy Lawson, Alan Noseworthy, and many more. A web presence is still pretty rare for most of use and of course, if the name has changed, almost impossible to track.

The University Years: Honours Physics & Chemistry for 3 years with Walter Owsianik (who has since gone to fame and glory as a prominent physican in Hamilton's north end), went to Australia for a year, returned, did fourth year and graduated with Major Chemistry after deciding that the math involved in Quantum Dynamics was beyond me. Worked like a dog. Sang in the McMaster Choir under Professor Thorelson. Names that spring to mind are John David Wood and his marvelous wife, Donna, roomate for a couple of years, Ann Jacobs who married Fred Green and went on to a Ph.D. and then became a high school teacher, Neil Kitchen, and so many others (suffers brief senior moment about all the faces that he remembers but none of the names - oh, well, they'll come).

1974: Started in the research lab at the Queen Street Mental Health Centre under Dr. Louis Huszka, and stayed there in various capacities under, successively, Dr. Kenton L. Reed, (see the legendary Lab Machine of this era, and All Dressed Up) Dr. Franco Vaccarino 1 2 , Dr, Steven Kish, and Dr. Edward Dunn.

1975: Started Tae Kwon Do under Park Jong Soo in Toronto. Rose to blue belt - left due to a string of injuries. Then played squash, racquetball, orienteered. Joined the High Park Ski Club to get out of the house in the winter - wrote the Green Avenger series of articles, captain of the (legendary) Green Team, co-captained and still under the leadership of Ken Godfrey. Became a X-country instructor along with luminaries as Charlie Kline, Bob Radford (his site is an incredible piece of work), Doug Dicks, Mike Kane and Lyn Aird, raced SOD for a season (finishing last almost all the time), did the legendary loppets - Kawartha, completed the CSM (100km on Saturday, 100km on Sunday), raced in Muskoka Loppet once too often.

1978: Started a very nice twelve year stint racing C&C 34s with Mike Dwyer and crew - I was one of the grunts. Spent 4 years acting in little theatre productions with Vivienne Gibbs, Ralph Brown, Bill Sharp et al. Me ~1980

1983: Was introduced my wife, Wynne, while running in the park, by Frank Shefman and his future wife, Vicki. Set my personal life-time best 10 km time at 42:23.

1984: Joined a shockingly long list of successful marriages that arose out of the Nordic Ski School. Was introduced to Wilderness Tripping by my far more experienced wife - when we paddle she sterns and is very good at it, having done lots of trips north of Thunder Bay and raced in the marathon canoe Ontario championships.

1987: Our little daugher was born, changing our lives forever. Bought a house, moved 3 times to accommodae her various educational needs. By 2001 she's in grade 9, stands 5'8" and her hands are as big as mine - my how time flies.

1994: Stared as a white belt at Desantos Martial Arts Studio. Along with Wynne and the kid. Wynne got to green belt and the kid to blue belt - when we moved to Aurora - 50 km north of Toronto, it was no longer practical for them to continue. I, fortunately, still work down in the city. My blue belt was one of the few grading I have pictures of. As a compensation for travelling 60 km each way (75 min) through ridiculous traffic, I can still attend DeSantos, at least for the morning classes.

1997: I received my Black Belt in Tae Kwon Do from Kwan Jang Nim Veronica DeSantos in June of 1997 at the age of 47. She is a wonderful and tireless teacher. Outside the dojo she is a strong presence in The National Women's Martial Arts Federation as well as running self-defense courses for many local schools and organizations. Our style is a rich blend reflecting Kwan Jang Nim's eclectic background. Our school practices the ITF forms using the low Shotokan stances, kobudo for the higher belts, and both points style and WTF style sparring. We now have 6 Black Belts over the age of 45 so I have a rather vested interest in the experiences of the silver set in gaining their Black Belts at an advanced age. Drop me a line if you or your parents fall into this category.

1999: My how time passes. In November of 1999, I received my 2nd Dan. I'll be putting up the graduation pictures soon. Through a quirk of fate this leaves me as the oldest senior dan. But I'm just the leader of the geriatric pack. Some promising youngsters in the 43-48 range will be grading shortly.

2000: Started teaching a class a week the early Tuesday morning crowd - although leading a class of peers would probably be more accurate - The Early Morning Gang 2 - Angela Mailis, Fred Middleton, Norm McNeall, Lea Goliath.

2000: Started to play the tenor saxophone and take lessons from Dave Hammer. On the basis that it takes 20,000 hours of practice to become great, I'm already 4% of the way to stardom.

2002: My how the time flies. Grading for my 3rd Dan in October. This will be an unusual grading in that about 50% of the candidates are adults -- you know, the ones with jobs, responsibilities, children, etc. It takes a special degree of commitment to train at this level with all the other things that go on in life. Those youngsters I mentioned earlier are now in their early 50s.